


Things That Can't Be Long Hidden

by SingleHearts



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-10 07:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3282206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingleHearts/pseuds/SingleHearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is more like a nightmare now, a haunting memory of yet another good thing that was fucked up by his life—by him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time using AO3 so please bear with me...I know the summary doesn't summarize much but this is about Stiles envisioning Malia after she left him without a single goodbye. Months have passed since Malia disappeared and now he is internally battling with either believing she is real or just another trick of his mind. I hope you enjoy.

He enters his room—tired. It is a Full Moon tonight, and he can’t get his mind to rest. He can almost feel the synapses in his brain firing like shotguns. He is feeling overly stimulated, every noise and shadow leaves him gasping for air. There is an internal battle playing in his head and it’s leaving him physically drained and mentally scarred.

He just wants to rest; he wants to sleep.

He hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since, well—

It’s been days, weeks, maybe even months since he last slept a good 5 hours straight. He can’t really remember the last time he’s had a good rest. He can’t remember a lot of things actually. Lately he’s been having trouble distinguishing fiction from reality. It may have something to do with the dark circles under his eyes or his constant heavy eyelids.

Stiles throws his keys on his desk; he spends most of his sleepless nights cruising around the neighborhood in his jeep. It keeps him from gnawing and clawing at his skin in a restless attempt to keep distracted.

He massages the back of his neck and sighs. It is 5 in the morning, and he already knows it is going to be a shitty day.

He sneaks a quick glance towards his bed; he is dreading having to sit down on the corner of his mattress only to stare out the window, waiting for dawn to break into his room—a behavioral sign that proves he is definitely not okay.

He could pace around in his room instead, while he waits for the rest of the world to wake up. He could pass the time weaving worries in his mind like some newfound weaving expert.

Worries are never lacking in Stiles Stilinski’s life, it almost seems that he has a life-worth of worries.

There are the unpaid bills, the increasing wrinkles on his father’s face, the debts, and the overwhelming feeling that something terrible is going to happen. There is the burdening feeling of feeling utterly useless and the memories proving that he actually is. The constant replays of the _what ifs_ and the _it should have been me._ There are the regrets and the laborious punishing self-guilt, hitting him like a menacing whip.

He could go all night and day pacing in his room, weaving masterful dark never ending tapestries in his mind. But he doesn’t want to do that, because his brain is already pounding like a fucking dong. And he needs to be migraine free when he confronts his dad, once again, about getting a job.

His dad will never tell him, but he has noticed the way his father never seems to be home now. He spends his time working extra hours, trying to pay off Stiles’ medical bills. Stiles told him that they needed to help each other, take care of each other, but his father told him “no” when he mentioned a part-time job.

The Sheriff wants his son to graduate high-school, and with Stiles’ constant absences and lack of attention the probability of a High School diploma in the next year is looking incredibly low.  A part-time job just won’t do it; it is the father’s responsibility to pay the bills not the child’s.

Stiles is dreading the moment he tells his father that college is just not an option at the moment. He hasn’t even bothered to look at any college applications. Unlike Scott, Lydia and Kira he isn’t applying; he simply can’t afford it.

He uses the heel of his hands to massage his tired eyes, and slowly turns to face his bed. He is exhausted, he might try to lie down and close his eyelids for just a few minutes. He blinks a few times before his vision settles on a familiar silhouette standing just on the other side of his clear glass board.  His heartbeat catches in his throat, and he forgets to exhale for a few seconds.

He needs to fight the urge to tear down the papers taped on his board when he remembers to breathe again. It’s useless; as soon as his mind clears and his field of vision opens, the figure will disappear, just like it always does.

It has been weeks since he last had a hallucination, making him run into empty air with outstretched arms like a maniac. The first time he had one, he stumbled out of his bed, blankets tangling on his ankles as he fell on his knees, crawling his way to the window. His heart had almost burst through his chest, as his whole body shook with the incapability of reaching out, with the fear of being too late. 

He had almost jumped out of the window, with every intention of following nothing at all. Luckily, his father had been home that night to hear him scream out like a frantic delusional maniac. The Sheriff had to hold on to his son that night to keep him from running out the house, bare-feet, in search of a presence that was no longer part of their lives. The next morning, Stiles had tried to avoid his dad because whenever he met his eyes, sadness spilled out of them like a broken faucet.

From that night on, he continued having hallucinations in the most unexpected moments: snippets of blonde tips disappearing around a corner of the hallways back at school, the outline of memorized curves standing out in the distance, and a comforting silhouette climbing through his window late at night.

He fell for them a couple of times, he couldn’t help it. He was in desperate shape; just like a lonely man stranded in a dessert for days without water, with a mirage of an oasis lying before him. He had to run, he had to reach out or else he might desiccate. Yet, with each realization that it was just another trick of his brain—a mocking mirage—he actually felt himself wither a little more inside.

He sighed once again, letting his head fall in self-pity. This has been going on for far too long already. He needs to stop thinking about her; he needs to forget.

_She isn’t coming back; Malia is never coming back,_ but facts are easy to ignore when they don’t want to be accepted as the truth. This was his unconsciousness telling him that he is still clinging onto the false alarms of desperate hope. And hope is simply the worst enemy of the desperate tormented soul, because here is hope mocking him once again with the memories of Malia Hale.

* * *

Stiles Stilinski just wants to rest, he wants to close his eyes and not think for once. He doesn’t want to dream, he doesn’t want to hope, he simply wants to breathe.

He clutches his hands into tights fists, digging bitten nails into his dry skin and presses his lips into a tight line as he inhales deeply.

She is more like a nightmare now, a haunting memory of yet another good thing that was fucked up by his life—by him.

He lets out a shaky breath before slowly dragging his eyes back up to that spot in his room, right next to the window. His eyes widen with shock and somewhat fear when he takes in the fact that her apparition is still there. Standing perfectly still, as if cautiously waiting for him to make the wrong move so it could disappear.

He isn’t sure what to do, his hallucinations never last this long. His dreams are the ones that take up to more than 3 minutes, making him believe that he is actually awake. They always seem and feel so real, he believes it is one of the many haunting little gifts the Nogitsune left him after the possession.

He accidentally stumbles back, feeling all of a sudden weak on the knees. He is shaking, and losing air. He tries to feel his hands; he tries to remember that they are still there and that he needs them in order to come back.

He is dreaming, all of this time he’s been dreaming.

The familiar pang of fear hits him right in his chest and he winces, doubling over in physical pain. He is petrified; he hasn’t had one of these episodes in months. The flashbacks of the Nogitsune wash over him like a monster wave, drowning him in fear. He tries to come up for air but wave after wave of past nightmares keep washing over him.

He is down on his knees, his chest and shoulders heaving, when he notices his hands, and his attention is back on his fingers. He needs to count to ten; he needs to make sure this isn’t a dream. There _needs_ to be five fingers in each hand for him to be able to breathe again.

He starts counting, beginning with a tremulous “one” and moving onto his index finger on his left hand. Something isn’t right; his fingers keep moving, duplicating and then merging into each other making it extremely difficult to count.  He is breathing through shivers, his voice trembling with each sound he produces. He is seeing double, and he needs to concentrate because he is losing air so quickly.

He feels sudden coolness clasp the sides of his face and it startles him. The sensation distracts him from his duplicating fingers and he looks up. “Shhh…shhh,” the sound sweeps through him like a lullaby and he sighs. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” He forgets about the fingers in his hands to pour all of his concentration on this voice.

“Shhh…” and he does, he hushes; he stops gasping for air, making these choked up noises. “You’re okay.” It’s not a question, but it’s not a statement either, it’s rather omniscient but he nods nonetheless because he is breathing almost normally now.

His heart is still beating like crazy but his lungs have stopped feeling like if they are on fire. He blinks back the moist that was accumulating in his eyes and tries to focus on the shadow before him. He can make the outlines perfectly, and he wants to reach out to trace them with his trembling fingers.

His mind still feels hazy—a lack of oxygen to his brain—but his vision is focusing more with every passing second. The sudden blurry contours of the figure before him are becoming clearer, and his mind quickly registers familiar features that his memory can never forget.

Suddenly, he remembers why he’s on the floor with his heart in his throat and he feels the rise of another panic attack coming.

_She’s still here. I’m still dreaming._

He tries to bring his hand back to his face so he can re-start the counting but the figure before him is one step ahead of him.

“ _Stiles_.” He ignores it this time; he whimpers and closes his lids tight because the sound of his name coming from that familiar voice is so exact, so real that it actually hurts to hear it. But he tries his best to ignore it because it’s a trick; he is so certain it’s a trick.

_Wake up Stiles. Wake up!_

“Stiles. Look at me.” She presses her forehead against his and he can feel the sudden splash of coolness and peace. It washes him momentarily but the panic soon stains him again. He sighs and then grunts. And then he feels an inner pull starting from his core and stretching out to the front of his head.

He wants to pull away, but then he is welcomed with immediate relief. All the pain, panic and fear are being drained out of him and his muscles relax to the sudden release. He no longer feels an oppressing weight on his chest, his head is no longer throbbing and his throat is no longer obstructed by the swelling of his heart.

“Breathe,” and he does, he breathes just for her because she’s helped him come out of the water once again. He can feel the steadiness of his heartbeat now and the warmth of her hands on his cheeks. His room is quiet with only the echoes of their steady breathing intermingling with each other.

Dawn breaks into his room, and the light of a new day reaches and touches them both caressing her first, starting from her knees to her hands and resting momentarily on her brown eyes before gently sweeping her hair.

Stiles never looks away, he takes her all in as nature reveals her. She is kneeling right before him, the soft light embellishing her, making her more real than life itself and his heart tightens in his chest.

The truth cannot be long hidden, he knows this and so he has to fight every urge not to break down when he finally calls out to her.

“Malia?”


	2. You Should Have Stayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuation........

The room is vibrating with the eerie sound of silence. He can feel the static of time prickling on the surface of his skin, making every small hair on his body rise in protest.

He is hyperaware of the light streaming through his window, the dust particles dancing in mid-air, and the pair of deep brown eyes staring right at him.

_Malia_

It only took him three syllables to break down a barrier he hadn’t known was there. He felt the moment it shattered, the exact moment a trillion atoms burst apart into thin air.

His mother once told him that names have power, the power to summon and dismiss. He never realized how right his mother had been until he called out Malia’s name. Until he felt the change: the energy of time and space rushing through him like a tempest only to detain him here, right at the eye of the storm—right  in themoment.

 _This_ moment…

He is looking at her as she stares right into him. Pain and sadness paints her face into a surreal work of art and it terrifies him.

It’s been known for months now that Malia Tate disappeared. Her body was never found, no reports of the missing teenage girl were ever made, and Tate simply gave her for dead. Malia simply disappeared.

_She’s gone._

He tried looking for her, spent days retracing steps, living on yesterdays like he could actually change time. But he never got even close to finding her; she simply lost herself with every intention of not being found.

He never forgave her for that, not even when he screamed for her in between dreams.

She is looking right into him and he can hear every nerve in his body scream.

His hands are itching to swipe the strands of hair framing her face, and he has to turn his hands into tight fists to keep them from falling into old habits. His knuckles are bruising white as he keeps his stare fixed on her, afraid that if he blinks once she might disappear. 

He isn’t sure if it’s a dream, if she is just another illusion. His mind is still teetering between fiction and reality, and he doesn’t want to move; he doesn’t want to touch her. He’s afraid, afraid that she might not be real.

_One wrong move and she is gone._

He’s had her and he’s lost her too many times to know damn well the pain that comes from it, from having and losing her over and over again. 

She finally moves, she looks down momentarily before leaning towards him. He wants to scream out; he wants to fall back to keep her from getting any closer. But his body won’t respond to his commands. Instead, it stays perfectly still inviting her into its space.

He can’t look away, his eyes are glued to her proximity and to her every detail. He can smell her now, his senses heightening with the aroma of fresh earth and dew. He is fighting the inner desire to lean closer to her as well, just so he could inhale the faint scent of wild berries he knows buries deep under her pores.

She stops just a few inches from him; her lips slightly part and she emits a soft breath that trickles down his spine. His body immediately reacts with a shaky breath of its own causing her lids to flutter before falling slightly as if to sigh.

He’s missed her; every inch of his anatomy has missed her. His body reacts to her in a way that he has no control over. His mind may be stubborn as fuck but the rest of him gives way to her like a reflex.

But he is going to keep telling himself that she left. He is going to replay that shattered promise in his head like a broken record. He is going to keep trying to convince his mind that she is dead.

_Malia is dead, and she is never coming back._

His eyes are stinging now because he knows how fucked up he can be, but Stiles is stubborn and he knows how to keep a grudge. He knows how to keep guilt, pain, and regret like a fucking obscene necessity. He knows betrayal, and he knows to never forget it.

She left him.

_She left._

* * *

 

Malia came back with one single purpose in mind, to make sure that this boy in front of her was still alive. She doesn’t understand farewells; she doesn’t get the importance of words and expressing them. Malia simply does with actions; she analyzes and takes her time to examine in order to understand. She scents and touches, she watches carefully and waits. Sometimes she is too eager, sometimes she is too rash, and sometimes she can be a bit too cold. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel and hurt the same way that they all do. Malia is different but not all that different from the rest of the humans, from Lydia and Stiles.

Malia wants Stiles to know this; she wants him to understand because she spent a great portion of her human life dedicating it to understanding him. She used words when they were scarce in her mouth because he asked her too. She spent hours trying to figure out how to put emotions and thoughts into running sentences just so she could communicate with him. She used every ounce of her will power and strength to try, and she tried. She tried so hard, because she finally found someone else she could trust, someone who actually believed in her.

It is not that Malia needed the reassurance; it is not that she was dependent because Malia is independent as fuck. The proof is in the way she simply got up and left.  She didn’t need the approval of anyone, not even Stiles to figure herself out. They may call her selfish, cold-hearted, but Malia is human too after all. She hurts and breaks every once in a while, but eight years of living on her own in the wild taught her that the only person you can really trust and depend on is yourself. If you break into a thousand pieces the only one left to pick them up and put them back together is you. But Malia never figured that she would need someone other than herself to help her pick up those first few pieces.

She stands up, stepping out from that natural lighting, when she feels the surge of rejection emanating from Stiles to her. It stings her and bruises her, and she has the immediate need to run. She turns immediately to the window, ready to jump out of it once again, but Stiles must have read her mind because he shoots up ready to jump right after her. 

She clenches her hands into tight fists, the four walls around her suddenly becoming to constraining and suffocating. She whips her head back to him in a menacing form but he doesn’t flinch. He is too preoccupied monitoring her, and she wants to growl at him to stop.

She shouldn’t have come back; she shouldn’t have entered his room. She had seen him before, she knew that he was fine, that her nightmares were simply that—nightmares. Yet, she made up this bullcrap of an excuse to come close, to see him face to face. She can’t remember what that excuse was now, as if that is important when he is looking at her like that, like she is the fucking sun and the mere sight of her is too blinding for him.

She takes a step forward towards the window, and Stiles quickly follows quite anxiously.

Malia can’t have him jump out the window.

Stiles is stubborn, often senseless and ultimately clumsy. He jumps, and there is no guarantee he will land safely, but he won’t care. Hell, he’ll try to run after her even with a twisted ankle.

She emits a growl when he gets a little too close; warning him like a father warns his pup when he doesn’t want the child to follow. But like she said, Stiles is stubborn.

She growls and he takes another step forward, right into the shadows with her. It’s Malia’s time to panic, because he is too close now and suddenly she is not ready for that. It’s the fucking damn walls again, they are all around her and they are getting closer. She can’t back away now because if she does her back will hit wall.

He is getting closer and something in his expression is changing. The fear and outright confusion is now stern determination. The light and the dark can play tricks on the eye, they can either deceive or they can unmask.

He is getting too close and Malia feels like prey, she tries to growl but his intense presence makes her threat drown in her throat. Instead she whimpers, and this makes him stop right on his track. She thinks that this is the end, that his features will soften and he will back away right into the light. But it doesn’t, he doesn’t, instead he looks right at her with a cold stare that freezes her.

“Why did you come back?”

It’s a stern whisper but the words still have the power to resonate throughout the room, bouncing off the walls like uncontrollable limitless bullets. 

Why did she come back?

Malia has never been the one to lie, that is all Stiles.

“For _you_. I came back for you.”

* * *

 

He will never understand the immense influence she has over him. It both angers and terrifies him; he never realized how intense it was until she left. He had known that Malia was a huge part of why he had managed to stay sane after the Nogitsune. He knew that it was due to her presence and her unconditional trust on him that made him somewhat stronger. She was more than a distraction, more than a companion, and more than a filter.

Maybe this is the reason for why he finds it so hard to forgive her even though he is so willing to take her back in without question. It’s that it seems to him that he needs her more than she needs him and that is terrifying. She can leave whenever she pleases, and he can’t.

He isn’t ready to let her know that, he feels weak and vulnerable enough already to go as far as to tell her that she makes him lose his fucking mind.

Stiles hates himself for many reasons.

The scars on his skin and on his soul deforms and contorts him making him lose memory of who he once was. He focuses too much on those scars; he pours all his energy on reminding himself how those scars were created. How he caused most of them, and how they are so ugly and prominent under the light.

He isn’t the same Stiles Stilinksi, he hasn’t been for quite a long time. If he ever did find himself with scars and all, it had been under a different form of lighting. The type of light that the girl infront of him has only been able to produce.

_It’s her fault that he is back to this, back to this shitty self, even worse than before._

Stiles hates himself for many reasons, and he knows that this is one of them.

“Why did you come back?”

He should have just asked her what he’s wanted to ask her. The question he has been asking her in his dreams for months now.

_Why did you leave?_

But Stiles has been on that bitter side for too long, and it’s hard to come back from it. He should stop, he should simply back away but he is on that boat now and he can’t see shore.

“You shouldn’t have come back.”

_You should have stayed._

“Why did you come back?”

_I’ve missed you to the point of losing my mind._

He doesn’t know if he really wants a response from her because he simply keeps spewing venom at her. He will hate himself for this later; he hates himself for it already. He doesn’t deserve for what comes next, she should have stabbed him instead, but Malia isn’t like Stiles.

“For _you_. I came back for you.”

No, Malia isn’t like Stiles.

“Then why did you leave? “

He looks at her with less anger; he looks at her with hope.

She sighs and looks down at the floor and he has to keep his hand from gently grabbing her chin to lift her stare back to his.

“I never left _you_ Stiles. I would never leave you.”

He furrows his brows because he doesn’t understand. Of course she left him; he’s been sleeping alone on that damn bed for months now.

“I’ve been coming back, but I just couldn’t stay.”

He doesn’t get it, what does she mean by “been coming back”?

“Every month, I come back to Beacon Hills to see that you’re okay—“

“But I _haven’t_ been okay.” Why can’t she understand that? Why can’t she see how screwed up he is?

She frowns at him and shakes her head, “You’re still alive. You’re _okay_.”

Stiles feels frustration rise within him and he runs his trembling fingers through his hair, almost tearing them off of his scalp.

“I’m not _okay_. This is not ‘okay’, this is not being _alive_. Malia just fucking look at me!” His eyes are bleeding red and tears fall down his flushed cheeks with heavy loads of shame.

Malia does, she looks at him. She always looks at him, even when he is not noticing.

“I am.”

She steps closer to him, pushing away all those suffocating walls. She reaches to wipe the tears streaming down his face and he steps closer to her, both forgetting about all those invisible lines and barriers.  

His shallow breaths kiss her face and Malia is ready to help pull him out of another panic attack, but he slides his hand behind the nape of her neck and kisses her.

He kisses her a bit too desperately as if they don’t have enough time. His breathing is still coming out in short breaths but he doesn’t stop kissing her. He slips his other hand behind her neck and then his cupping her face, pulling her in like she is the oxygen supply he so desperately needs.

Malia can taste the salted tears that had fallen on his lips, the salty tears that keep on falling. She feels a knot tie in her throat and then she has to hold onto Stiles too because she feels like she won’t be able to breath without him in a few seconds when her tears start falling as well.

They are a mess of short breaths and whimpers, but they don’t care. They can’t let go of each other, they don’t want to.

Stiles keeps her face close when he pulls away from their kiss and rests his forehead against hers. Malia has trails of tears running down her eyes and she looks at him intently, pulling him in back to her but Stiles resists. He needs to tell her something, he needs to make sure.

“Don’t you _ever_ leave me again. Malia, _please_.”

His pleading eyes bore into her, and Malia is one hundred percent sincere when she nods her head. She finally manages to pull him back in and this time she kisses him, opening his mouth with her tongue so she could taste him and have him.

Stiles leans into her as she pulls him, and he slips his hands down to her waist wrapping his arms around her so he could feel her whole body press against his.

He won’t let her leave. He needs and wants her, and he doesn’t care because right now Malia wants him as well.

He won’t tell her, not yet. He’ll make sure she knows it before he even says it. He is going to make her stay, he is going to try. If his emotions for her are not enough then he’ll have no other choice but to have to let her go. But he won’t think about that right now, he has her for now.

And for now that is all he needs.


End file.
